CAMDEN — In probe, Trump uses ‘advice-of-counsel’ rule
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump offered a simple defense Thursday to accusations he broke campaign finance law by directing attorney Michael Cohen to orchestrate hush-money payments to conceal Trump’s alleged affairs: He was following terrible advice from a bad lawyer.
“I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called ‘advice of counsel,’” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The advice-of-counsel defense is a real thing. But Trump’s ability to use it, if he were ever formally accused of a crime, is far from certain. And it could be risky.
“People talk about advice-of-counsel as a defense more than it’s actually asserted, and it’s rarely successful,” said Dane Ciolino, a constitutional law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.
Courts have held that the defense applies when a person has gone to a lawyer to ask about whether something is legal, disclosed all material facts, and then relied in good faith on the professional’s advice that no laws were being broken.
The illegal act in this case involves payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal to keep them from talking about sexual encounters they say they had with Trump while he was married.
Federal prosecutors in New York say the payments amounted to illegal campaign contributions because they were made at the height of the 2016 election season to keep voters from learning of Trump’s alleged infidelities. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for the violations and other crimes, including bank fraud and tax evasion.
Michigan governor has final deal over pipeline
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration has wrapped up negotiations with Enbridge Inc. on building a tunnel to contain an oil pipeline beneath a Great Lakes waterway.
Snyder’s office released a series of agreements Thursday with the Canadian pipeline company. They include details and timelines for the plan to drill the tunnel through bedrock under the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lakes Huron and Michigan. The project would allow decommissioning of twin pipelines that run more than four miles across the bottom of the straits.
The Michigan Legislature voted this week to establish a panel that will oversee construction and operation of the tunnel. Its first meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday. Snyder wants the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority to approve the Enbridge deal before he leaves office this month.
U.S. demands an end to violence in Cameroon
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States demanded an immediate end to violence in Cameroon on Thursday and a speedy start to talks between the government and Anglophone separatists without preconditions.
U.S. deputy ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the Security Council that security and humanitarian conditions in Cameroon’s English-speaking North West and South West regions “have significantly deteriorated.”
October was the most violent month on record in recent years — and November is likely to surpass it, he said.
Hundreds have been killed in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions in months of fighting between the military and separatists who claim they are marginalized in the largely French-speaking country.
“The violence must stop now,” Cohen said. “The United States calls for an immediate and broad-based reconciliatory dialogue, without preconditions. ... We urge all sides to foreswear violence, to restore peace, and to resolve their grievances through political dialogue.”
He said the escalating violence is obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid to over 430,000 internally displaced people as well as education and health access to children in rural areas. Reena Ghelani, director of U.N. humanitarian operations, warned that Cameroon is “one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa,” saying that in addition to those who have fled their homes and remain in the country over 30,000 Cameroonians have crossed the border into Nigeria seeking refuge.
The majority of internally displaced Cameroonians “are hiding in dense forests, without adequate shelter and lacking food, water and basic services,” Ghelani said. “Schools and markets are also disrupted and there are alarming health needs.”